


peter, michelle, gwen, and harry: enough already!

by adashofhope



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: F/M, Uh oh!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-04-22 07:31:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 15,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14303832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adashofhope/pseuds/adashofhope
Summary: "you don't understand! it's not a love triangle anymore, it's a fuckin square!"





	1. the beginning

Honestly, her life should be a fucking novel.

 

Or a CW show. 

 

Maybe, a CW show that was based on a novel.

 

That’s how shitty it is.

 

That’s how  _ overdramatic  _ her life is.

 

First, her dad dies when she’s 2 years old.

 

But then, three years later, her mom marries this police captain and he has a sweet daughter who’s a year older than him. MJ’s always wanted a sister. Her new sister was pretty, kind, smart, funny and everything that MJ wanted to be when she grew up.

 

And she’s happy, and she still misses her dad but George is pretty cool, and they’re all so nice and funny and she fits right in and she feels at home and-

 

And her mom is happy.

 

That’s what matters most.

 

Until, her mom dies.

 

She’s 8 years old and her mom dies in a car accident.

 

They were arguing about something, she still can’t remember what it was but it was a light-hearted argument and her mom had turned to look at her and she hadn’t seen the other car coming and-

 

And all she remembers is hearing the sound of glass shattering, and getting away without any major injuries because her mother had protected her. 

 

She hears the siren of the ambulance, and a crowd forming around the car. 

 

A nice young lady with yellow sunglasses, her name was June or something, had sat with her until the police arrived and took her with them.

 

When they took her to George, she’d seen her sister with her arms wide open and she sobbed. She sobbed into her sister’s shirt and it seems like it was the only thing she could do.

 

She waited at the hospital with them, and they said that her mom was asleep. And, it’d take her a while to wake up.

 

So, everyday after school she would sit with her mom and talk to her about her day and about what book she was reading and she would always sing Their Lullaby.

 

The one that her Dad used to sing to her to make her fall asleep.

 

And then, they said her mommy was dead.

 

They had a funeral, and she stopped crying there.

 

A few relatives came over to hug her and tell her that they were sorry but she had no emotion.

 

She just squeezed her sister’s hand a little tighter.

* * *

She wasn’t the best at coping with the pain. She knew that.

 

Her grades went down, and she became snarkier and meaner to the other kids and she lost all her friends and she started to stay in detention because it was the only place where she was  _ alone. _

 

She just...needed some room to breathe.

 

George had sat her down and told her that he knew it was hard, but she had to try to get better. Then, he compared her to her sister and told her that she should try to be more like her.

 

That was the first time it hit her.

 

Suddenly, MJ was very aware that they were not her family.

 

Her parents were dead.

 

But no matter how out of place she felt, she tried her hardest. 

 

She got her grades up again, and she decided to lose herself in books. 

 

If there was one way she could forget about her life, forget about being Michelle, it was through books and it was her only escape. 

 

Middle school was a blur, but her only goal was to just get through life.  Then, high school came and she was in a special school for genius kids. She was a little glad because her sister was here with her too, and it was comforting to have her even if they weren’t as close as they were before. 

 

But her sister was popular here. 

 

Everyone loved her sister, and her...well, no one really cared. No one really  _ knew  _ they were related, and maybe, it would be better that way. For her, and her sister.

 

She couldn’t help but to long for that kind of love sometimes. To have people smile at you all the time, to have people make way for you, to have all the boys in love with you and all the girls trying to be you.

 

But, she was fine. 

 

She was fine, eating her lunch in the library surrounded by her best friends; books.

 

She chooses Academic Decathlon as her extra-curricular, and she meets the only other biracial girl at Midtown.

 

They hit it off and they aren’t best friends but they’re friends and that’s enough for her. They don’t sit together at lunch, though, because Liz has other friends and she wouldn’t want to intrude or anything.

 

An asshole named Flash bullies her a little, and Liz stands up for her and they smile at each other.

 

But then, Liz leaves. 

 

She hugs Liz goodbye as she’s getting her things from her locker. 

 

Liz tells her that she chose her as the next captain. 

 

She wishes that Liz didn’t have to leave.

 

She warms up to the Decathlon team,  _ her  _ decathlon team, but they don’t sit with each other at lunch. She sits at her own table now, everyone’s too afraid to even look at her table and she thinks she likes it that way.

 

Ned, one of the kids from AcaDec who took her to the Homecoming dance as friends, invited her over to his table one day, when he’s all alone and his friend Peter had run off somewhere again.

 

She knows that Ned is a sweet guy, and she doesn’t want him to be alone, so she picks up her bag and sits down opposite him and she tells him that she’s never seen Star Wars before and he gasps.

 

The next day, Peter’s back again and when she moves to sit at her regular table, 

 

“What are you doing?”

 

She comes to a halt, “...Eating lunch?”

 

“You never eat lunch, you’re always reading.”

 

She looks between Ned, and Peter (who looks just as confused as she is).

 

“That’s besides the point. Sit with us,” Ned gestures at the empty space in front of him.

 

She looks down at her bag and at the chair.

 

“Please?”

 

Slowly, she makes her way to the table and plops her bag there. She can practically feel all the question marks radiating from Peter as she places her book on the table.

 

“We don’t bite, you know,” Ned smiles.

 

“I know,” she says, and the corner of her mouth quirks up. “But, I do.”

 

She thinks she hears Peter squeak.

 

Ned remains unfazed. He turns to Peter, “She’s never seen Star Wars.”

 

“Never?”

 

“Never,” Ned confirms.

 

Peter looks at her with wide eyes, “Never?!”

 

“Never.”

 

“Maybe, you wanna come over at our place, and watch them together?” Ned suggests.

 

She nearly chokes. Nearly.

 

“You want me to come over and watch it with you guys?”

 

“Yeah!”

 

She looks at Peter, who doesn’t seem exactly thrilled at the idea. “I don’t wanna impose…” she says, looking at the shock on Peter’s face.

 

Ned’s about to protest but the bell rings and she runs away.

 

The next day, Peter stays back after Decathlon and helps her clean up.

 

“Hey, the offer for movie night is still up?” he says hopefully.

 

She looks down at her books as she stuffs them into her bag, “I don’t know if-”

 

“I want you there. I’m sorry I was weird about it yesterday. I was just surprised. I really want you to come, it’d be an honor to be one of the people who introduced you to Star Wars.”

 

He looks like a puppy.

 

Damn it, he looks like a puppy.

 

“Okay.”

 

“Okay?”

 

“I’m not saying ‘okay’ again.”

 

“Alright. You have my number, right? I’ll send you my location when I get home.”

 

He practically skips out of the library and she groans. 

 

What was she doing?

 

And that’s how she becomes best friends with Peter Parker and Ned Leeds. That’s how she starts having friends again.

 

And everything is fine and dandy, and they’re her best friends until she realises that she’s got a massive crush on Peter. The kind of crush that could potentially creep him out and never get him to talk to her again, and she would lose her friends. 

 

She can’t afford that. 

 

Nope, not at all. 

 

But, his smile makes her stomach do flips. The way he runs his hands through his hair, makes her want to reach out and touch his hair. She wants to love him. She wants to him to let her love him.

 

And she does the stupidest thing, in the history of stupid things.

 

She lets herself believe that there’s a chance. There’s hope. She lets herself believe that maybe, just maybe, he might like her back.

 

One day, he shows up at her apartment unannounced.

 

She opens the door and her eyes widen in surprise, “How do you know where I live?”

 

He stands there and stutters, and she crosses her arms and squints her eyes intimidatingly.

 

“MJ? Who is that?” she hears George call from the kitchen.

 

“It’s no one, George! Just a friend from school!”

 

“A friend?” she hears him gasp, and she ignores Peter’s gaze. “Which one is it? Peter? Ned? Let him in! I wanna meet him.”

 

She introduces Peter to her dad and Peter’s awkward about it and they go up to her room because Peter wants to talk to her about something important.

 

George makes her leave the door open.

 

A part of her thinks he’s going to tell her. That he likes her too.

 

She tries her hardest not to think about it.

 

“I think- I think…”

 

“What do you think?”

 

“This is really lame, but I’ve told Ned already and you’re the only one that’s going to help me about this, I think...I might have a crush on- Gwen?”

 

Her head snaps up and she looks in the direction he’s looking. 

 

There she is, Gwen Stacy. Her half-sister. The better child, s tanding in her doorway.

 

“Dad says dinner’s ready. Your friend can join too,” she smiles at Peter and then leaves.

 

“Gwen Stacy is your sister?!” Peter asks, once she leaves.

 

“Half-sister. What did you want to tell me?”

 

“Gwen Stacy is your half-sister,” Peter repeats, letting that sink in.

 

“That’s irrelevant. Tell me-”

 

“No, that’s the thing, MJ. I have a huge crush on Gwen.”

 


	2. you're the only friend i need

It’s been a couple of days since that fateful day.

 

That day when Peter told her that he had a massive crush on her sister. 

 

Ever since then, he’s been finding excuses to come over to her house, and whenever he does find a valid reason to be in her home, he always ends up ditching her to go kiss Gwen’s ass.

 

It’s not cool. 

 

Like her mega-crush aside, this is not cool at all. 

 

Gwen...has been pretty oblivious to Peter’s very obvious crush on her and she doesn’t know if that makes her want to slam her head against a car door more, or if it just makes her want to fling herself into open traffic.

 

An example of this whole situation is...right now.

 

Here she sits at the dining table with their science project that Peter abandoned, so that he could go talk about Gilmore Girls to Gwen on the couch. 

 

She hasn’t allowed herself to be sad about her whole situation. She is Michelle Jones and she will not wallow in self-pity and let her self-esteem drop to a dangerously low level because some boy would gladly pick her oh-so-perfect sister over her. Besides, this was old news! Michelle had known for years that she would always be the second choice, if a choice at all. Gwen was always the person that everyone picked first, and she’d learnt to make her peace with that. Sorta.

 

Instead of being sad, she turns all of her sadness into anger and annoyance as she grumbles obscenities under her breath and finishes the damn project by herself. 

 

The bright side is that the sooner she finishes the project, the less time Peter would spend here. She kinda doesn’t want him to go so soon because she would like to stare at his face a little longer, but she doesn’t exactly want to sit there and watch him agree with everything Gwen is saying with That Look in his eyes. 

 

She decides to sit at the very edge of the couch once she’s done, as far away from Peter as possible. She speaks, barely getting his attention, “So, I’m done with the project…”

 

Gwen looks at her as if she’s just remembering that she existed and that makes Peter take in her sentence. 

 

His smile drops and she almost wants to take back everything she’s said, just so he’s happy.

Almost.

“Oh, I guess that means I have to go,” he says, grabbing his things and not once apologising for making her do her project on her own. 

 

Gwen watches him from the couch, “Really? Because, I ordered pizza and I got your favourite.”

 

‘Your favourite?’ How did she know what pizza he liked?

 

“I can stay?” he looks at Gwen. 

 

“Of course!” Gwen says and Peter returns to the couch. 

 

She watches Gilmore Girls with them in silence, slowly curling up against the armrest of the couch. Her heart is hurting immensely, but she focuses very hard on the episode that’s playing so that she doesn’t have to acknowledge her heartbreak.

 

When the pizza arrives, they don’t even get a vegetarian one for her. Assholes. 

 

Ned bursts into her apartment a few minutes later and when he sees the condition she’s in, he wordlessly pulls her away from the couch and out of the apartment.

 

“I usually love third-wheeling, but they’re the worst people to be around,” Ned says, as they grab some pizza that she can actually eat.

 

“I guess you’ve got to pick your couples,” she agrees, feeling the hot cheese melt in her mouth.

 

“You know who I’d like to third-wheel for?” Ned asks, wiping his mouth with a napkin. 

 

“Who?”

 

“John Legend and Chrissy Teigen.”

 

“Oh my God, yes!” she exclaims. “That’s love.”

 

“And Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively.”

 

She nods, “Solid couple, those two.”

 

She takes a sip of her tea, “What about Will Smith and Jada Smith?”

 

“I would literally die.”

  
  


They end up at a cinema, spontaneously buying tickets for some indie movie they didn’t even know existed. They’ve still got time to kill, and that’s when MJ realises that she’s unbelievably prepared for the cold weather. 

 

Ned offers to give her his jacket but she says, “I don’t want you to be cold too.”

 

So, they head back to the apartment so she can grab her jacket and make it back in time for the movie. She checks her phone, it’s two hours to midnight, Peter should be gone by now.

 

But he isn’t.

 

They’re both knocked out on the couch and Peter’s got his head on Gwen’s shoulder.

 

She holds her jacket in her hands and stares at them because maybe that would make Peter wake up and look at her and realise that she likes him so much. 

 

She doesn’t see Ned stare at her in pity, and then put a smile on his face as he attempts to tell her a joke and gently drag her away from them. 

  
  
  


“Where is your boyfriend?” she grits out, clutching onto the strap of her bag tightly.

 

“Why, it’s nice to see you too, MJ. Yeah, I got a 100 on my Chem test. Thank you!” 

 

She walks over to Ned’s end of the table and forces him to stand up, “You’re going to help me find your asshole of a friend and watch me kick his ass.”   
  


“What did he do?” Ned groans, picking up his bag and letting her drag him out of the cafeteria.

 

“He kept talking to me about Gwen smiling at him in the hallway and we were in Cobwell’s class. Cobwell!” she says, still walking with no actual destination in mind.

 

“Wait, there he is!” Ned says, and he points at a figure that looks a lot like Peter, walking down the hallway.

 

She’s about to storm up to him and yell at him but then, she hears a female voice. More specifically, her sister’s voice.

 

Ned grabs her and they duck behind the lockers.

 

“By the way, I’m really proud of you. You nailed that test,” she whispers to distract herself from thinking of Peter and Gwen, walking together. 

Gwen doesn’t even look at her in the hallway. 

 

Well, that’s a bit of an over-exaggeration. Gwen does look at her. Occasionally.

 

“Thanks,” Ned exhales, peeking from behind the lockers. 

 

“What are they doing?” she asks, her back against the lockers.

 

“They’re  _ talking _ .”

 

“What?” she asks, above whispering volume as she pushes Ned out of the way to get a look. 

 

The school bell chooses that exact moment to go off, and she watches as Peter blushes beet red and watches Gwen leave. 

 

Then, he whips his head around and she thinks she might’ve gotten whiplash from hiding behind the locker before he could see her. 

  
  


It’s a week later and she’s angrily stuffing her books into her bag by her locker when she sees Peter walking Gwen to class. 

 

Peter catches her eye before he leaves to his class. 

 

Huh.

  
  


“Hey, Ned? Have you seen Peter anywhere? He was supposed to meet me here like 15 minutes ago,” she says, looking down at her phone and back at Ned.

 

“I think I saw him by his locker. He looked like he was going to leave.”

 

She groans. 

 

Not again. She’s not going to let him go this time. He’s been blowing her off on another Science project that they were assigned to together. She walks to his locker, only to see Gwen already there. 

 

It’s in times like this, where she really hates having feelings.

 

“So,” Gwen says, leaning against the locker beside him, hugging her books to her chest. “Are you going to the Sadie Hawkins dance?”

 

Oh right, that was a thing.

 

Peter laughs shyly and looks down at his notebook, or well, her notebook that she gave to him. She writes down notes in it and gives it to him for whenever he misses a particularly important class because of who knows what.

 

“I-um, no one has asked me.”

 

“Ok,” Gwen says, repositioning herself. “Wanna go with me?”

 

Peter sputters and stutters and turns every shade of red, “M-me? You want me to go with you? Like, as a-”

 

“Sure!” Gwen says nonchalantly, and it makes MJ wish she had her confidence.

 

“I…” Peter looks down at her notebook and then back at Gwen. “Okay.”

 

“Great, I’ll text you.”

 

And she’s gone. 

 

And once Gwen is out of sight, Peter does the cutest little victory dance in the history of victory dances and she hates everything. She feels her bottom lip wobbling and she forces herself to peel her eyes away from the smile on his face as she walks to the library. 

 

The tears well up in her eyes, but they never fall because she’s already wiping at her eyes. 

 

Ned sits down next to her after a while. 

 

When did he get here? Did he see everything? She’s blown her cover, hasn’t she? She tries to think of an excuse for whatever she just did out there, but she doesn’t need to because Ned never brings it up. 

 

She just listens to Ned talk to her about this new video game he’s been playing and a particular level that’s hard to pass and then Ned’s inviting her over to help him finish up the video game and she squeaks out something that she hopes sounds like a yes. 

 

Ned nods.

 

A few seconds later, he sighs and angles his body towards her as he sticks his pinky finger out, “Let’s make a pact.” 

 

She stares at him.

“Or like a tradition, I don’t know. From now on, we’re only allowed to go to minor dances like the Winter Formal, the Back to School Dance, the Sadie Hawkins dance and every other irrelevant dance, with each other. Until we graduate, we’ll only go to these dances with each other even if we have boyfriends or girlfriends.”

 

He wiggles his pinky and she curls hers against his, “Is this your weird way of asking me to the Sadie Hawkins because that’s not how it’s supposed to go, you know.”

 

“That wasn’t my original intention, but if you really do wanna go with me, then fine,” Ned teases.

 

She nods, seriously considering it, “Has anyone asked you?”

 

“Nope,” Ned shakes his head. “But that doesn’t matter because I’ll always be going with you to these things.”

 

“I don’t know if I want to go,” she says quietly, looking down at the random book she was fiddling with.

 

Ned nods in understanding. Then he says, “How about movie night at your place? We’ll order pizza and watch really stupid horror films.”

 

She smiles, “Deal.”

  
  


She holds the remote in one hand and squints at the TV as she looks at the movie options. The doorbell rings. She wears her glasses, “It’s open!”

 

The door opens and in comes Peter and Ned, strolling into her penthouse apartment.

 

Ned’s in his Star Wars pajamas which she makes a mental note to sneak a picture of later, and Peter-

 

She doesn’t wanna talk about him. 

 

“Hi,” she says solemnly, paying them no attention and staring at the TV.

 

“I brought pizza,” Ned says, walking to the couch. He sets her box in front of her carefully, “One whole pizza for you.”

 

She opens the box and is hit with the mouth-watering smell. She looks at Ned, “Thank you.”

 

He leans back, “What would you do without me?” 

 

She gets up to go grab a plate and then realises that Peter’s still standing awkwardly by the front door in his fucking suit that makes him look adorable. 

 

She rolls her eyes, “I’m not letting you have any of our pizza. Gwen says that you’re taking her out for dinner first.”

 

“Yeah, I am,” he says distractedly.

 

He’s eyeing her strangely. She pretends to not notice.

 

She grabs two plates for her and Ned, “How corny.”

 

He’s still staring at her. 

 

“What?” she asks finally. 

 

“I’ve never seen you with your hair down before.”

 

“What do you mean? You’ve seen me like this tons of times!”

 

He shakes his head, disagreeing with her and then a small smile spreads across his face, “Nice slippers.”

 

She looks down at her bunny slippers and mentally facepalms. Then, she looks up at him and the stupid smile on his face. “Nice flower,” she says, tapping his pocket square where a single stalk is stuffed into there.

 

“That’s not for me, it’s for-”

 

“Oh, you’re here already!”

 

And she thinks that Ned must’ve put on some cheesy D-Com and they’re watching a scene of when the guy goes to pick the girl up for prom and she walks down the stairs in slow-motion. 

 

But she’s not. 

 

Peter looks like he’s in so much of awe of her beauty, and she honestly doesn’t have to ask why.

 

Because her sister is stunning. 

 

Gwen is the perfect girl for him. She’s nice, smart, sweet, kind, a bit of a nerd, and really pretty. In short, she’s exactly Peter’s type. So, this makes sense, really.

 

“T-this is for you,” he rushes out, holding the flower out to her. 

 

“Thank you,” she smiles, accepting it. 

 

Gwen’s such a fucking Disney Princess, why can’t she be like that?

 

They say their goodbyes to them and she finally joins Ned on the couch. They sit in silence for a whole minute before Ned turns to her, “Wanna talk about it?”

 

She shakes her head and a tear falls onto her pajama bottoms. She didn’t even know she was crying.

 

“Do you wanna cry about it?” 

 

“No…” she groans. 

 

“Do you wanna...eat your feelings away and distract yourself with a movie where the main character’s life is shittier than yours?”

 

“Yes!”

 

Ned hands her her box, and takes his and they gently knock their boxes together, “Cheers.”

 

“To eating your feelings away!” he tries lightening the mood, raising his slice. 

 

“To eating my feelings away.”

 


	3. we're on each other's team

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is shit i'm sorry

“That,” Ned says, clutching onto his bag and making his way through the crowd of students. “Was crazy.”

 

“Yeah,” she agrees, looking back at the couple that had gotten into a full blown fight in the hallway. She looks at Ned, cringing slightly, “I’m really glad we didn’t go to the dance now.”

 

They walk into the room together. Most of the members are already here and the tables are set up so she decides to tick the attendance form that she made herself quietly, without anyone noticing. 

 

One minute ‘till practice starts and Peter still hasn’t arrived yet. Her pen hovers over the box beside his name, but she drops it to the side because he’s probably going to be late. He would’ve sent Ned or her a text by now if he wasn’t going to make it.

  
  


“Flash, who introduced the theory of punctuated equilibrium?”

 

“I have this! I have this, it’s Eldr-”

 

“Eldredge and Gould?” 

 

They turn their heads to the entrance of the room where Peter and Gwen are holding hands, having just arrived. Michelle tries to refrain from rolling her eyes.

 

“What the hell, Parker? I had that!” Flash exclaims, from the stage.

 

She arranges her papers and looks at him, “Nice of you to finally join us.”

 

When his eyes meet hers and she stares him down, he drops Gwen’s hand so fast, she wouldn’t be surprised if he had pushed her away from him. 

 

She looks at Gwen, “And, you’re here to watch?”

 

Gwen steps forward confidently, “Actually, I was wondering if I could join the team?”

 

Suddenly, everyone’s heads turn to look at her, at Michelle. For some absurd reason, Michelle locks eyes with Flash, as if asking him for help. Flash shrugs.

 

She looks at Mr Harrington, who’s texting away on his phone furiously and she sucks in a deep breath because she’s really about to do this, oh god. 

 

“Sure. Why not?”

 

MJ walks into Decathlon with five different binders in one hand, and some tea in the other. When she sets the pile of binders onto her table with a loud thud, it finally allows her to see Gwen and Peter talking very closely to each other, right across her. 

 

She nearly spills her coffee all over her graphs, but only nearly. 

 

“You guys are here,” she says, trying and failing to keep the surprise out of her voice.

 

Gwen sits up, forcing Peter to sit straight too, “Yeah! I felt really bad for being late the other day, so I thought I’d be here early this time.”

 

“That’s new, because Peter never feels bad,” she mutters under her breath, as she takes a seat and opens one of her many binders.

 

“Hey! I do too!”

 

She stops flipping through her binder and looks him dead in the eye, “Do you, Peter? Do you?”

 

“I hate you.”

 

“Oh please, you wouldn’t last a day without me. You love me,” she snorts, playfully smiling at him for what actually might be the first time since he’s gotten together with Gwen.

 

Peter takes a sip of his coffee and then smiles in that way that makes her insides get all mushy, “It’s true. I do love you.”

 

They fall back into a much more comfortable silence as she examines her graphs and he goes back to drinking his coffee. Both Peter and Michelle do not notice the slight frown on Gwen’s face. 

  
  


She rolls her eyes for the hundredth time, “Peter. Peter. Peter. Peter. Pete-”

 

Peter pulls away from Gwen and looks at her, puzzled, “Huh?”

 

Gwen whispers something in his ear and they both burst into giggles. 

 

Michelle looks down at her papers for a moment, just to control the sinking feeling in her chest. Then, she looks back at Peter, “I asked you a question.”

 

He’s already getting distracted by Gwen and that angers her so she blurts, “Before you answer my question, I think you both deserve to know that everyone here is done with your PDA, so if you guys could cut that shit out, it’d be great.”

 

They both pull away from each other, matching expressions of shock on their faces.

 

No one says anything, but because Flash has recently decided to take up comedy despite his horrible sense of humor and terrible comedic timing, he says, “Oh please, Michelle. You’re just mad that Peter has Gwen now.”

 

The room becomes even more silent than before, if that’s even possible. 

 

And Ned -bless his soul- asks Flash to shut up.

 

Flash looks genuinely confused when he says, “What did I do?”

 

She makes her voice clear, “Nothing. I’m just mad that they’d rather flirt with each other than focus on the fact that we’ve got State Finals in a month.”

  
  


Somehow, her hopes for an uneventful practice day come crashing down when she gets into a little squabble with Gwen. 

 

She doesn’t remember why they were fighting in the first place, or what triggered it but now, they’re both being passive-aggressive to each other in their own unique ways.

 

Gwen is being irritatingly nice, and she keeps ‘respectfully disagreeing’ with what feels like every single word that comes out of MJ’s mouth.

 

What hurts the most though, is that the Decathlon team is on Gwen’s side. 

 

It shouldn’t surprise her, but it does.

 

Because everyone has warmed up to Gwen now that she isn’t whispering unfunny jokes in Peter’s ear at every given moment. Everyone  _ loves  _ Gwen.

 

They adore her.

 

They might even worship her. 

 

And to be frank, she would not be surprised if Gwen somehow gets the position of Captain. 

 

When she’s sure that she’s had enough, she calls for a five minute break and pulls Gwen out to the hallway. 

 

“Listen well, sister,” she grits her teeth. “You do not get to walk in here and take over  _ my  _ team like you do with everything else. I will not let you take the one thing that means so much to me away, Gwen.”

 

“I’m not trying to take away your precious team, MJ. Have you thought that maybe your leadership could use a few different changes?”

 

“Do you- Do you know how much they mean to me? Do you know how much of my reading time I sacrifice to make sure that I’ll be able to get them to Nationals again? Do you know how  _ hard _ I’m trying to be a good captain to them?” her voice is breaking now, but she doesn’t care. 

 

“All I’m saying is that, they look like they might be agreeing with what I’m saying in there.”

 

She steps closer to Gwen, until they’re centimetres apart, “I don’t care if they don’t like me. That’s not new to me, I can handle that. All I’m trying to do is to fill in Liz’s shoes and to lead them to success. I will not let you come in here at the very last second, spend most of your practices flirting with your boyfriend, and then decide that there needs to be a change in leadership. This is the one thing, Gwen, that I will not let you take away from me without a fight.”

 

“MJ, you know I didn’t mean-”

 

“But you did.”

 

“MJ! Come on!” Gwen exclaims, following her back into the room where most of the team members are standing with their eyes wide. 

 

Great. They heard everything she said out there.

 

“Practice is dismissed!” she calls out, before Gwen is able to say anything else. 

 

Gwen picks up her things defeatedly and walks out of the room, a confused Peter hot on her tail. 

 

She begins packing her things up but stops when she realises that apart from Peter and Gwen, no one has moved from their spots.

 

Sally speaks first, “We’re sorry.”

 

“What?” she blinks.

 

“We like you,” Abraham assures her.

 

Cindy and Charles nod. 

 

“I think what they’re trying to say is, that you’re one of the best captains we’ve ever had and we love you too. You’re not just a captain to us.”

 

“You’re our friend too,” Flash says, surprising her.

 

“I- Thank you.” 

 

She smiles at them and they smile at her.

 

And then, Ned walks over to her and gives her a bear hug. Before she knows it, they’re all giving her a group hug.

 

It’s awkward and new but it makes her feel 10% better, and she’ll make do with that.

 


	4. rihanna is powerful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is super short but you won't have to wait super long for the next chapter i promise

It’s 3 am in the morning and she’s woken up by the sound of her phone getting spammed with endless text notifications. 

 

She grabs her phone from the table beside her and sits up, moving the half open book that was sitting on her chest to the empty space beside her on her bed. 

 

Surprisingly, all her texts are from Peter. 

 

She rolls her eyes and dials his number, slumping down in her bed again, getting in position to go back to sleep, which is probably not the best way to stay awake.

 

He answers on the first ring, “You got my texts?”

 

“Mhm.”

 

“Did I wake you?” she hears the guilt in his voice, but she’s too tired to care.

 

“Mhm.”

 

“Sorry, I’ll-”

 

“I’m awake now anyway. What is it that you wanted to talk about?”

 

“I can’t sleep,” he deadpans.

 

“Nightmares?”

 

“Not really,” she hears him sigh. “I just wanted to talk.”

 

“Is it urgent?”

 

“It’s about Gwen.”

 

She rolls her eyes and shifts around in bed to look for a more comfortable position, “No offense but I’m not in the mood to listen to you gush over Gwen and how much you like her.”

 

“I uh...” he drawls. “I meant, about the fight.”

 

She sits up slowly and he takes her silence as a chance to speak, so he blurts, “I think you should apologise.”

 

“Me? Apologise?!”   
  


“Yes-”

 

“Me?!”

 

“MJ, look-”

 

“There is no way in  _ hell  _ that I’m apologising to Gwen after her little stunt at practice yesterday.”

 

“Come on, MJ. You know she didn’t mean to overpower you or whatever. It really isn’t her fault,” he reasons and she rolls her eyes.

 

“If you feel so bad, why aren’t you talking to her right now?” 

 

And he goes silent. 

 

She’s about to hang up on him when he speaks, “Because, I think you should apologise.”

 

“What?” she snorts because that does not answer her question at all and because he’s really getting on her nerves. 

 

“I don’t understand why it’s so hard for you to just go up to her and apologise to her tomorrow!”

 

“Because it’s not my fault!” she says, her voice raising slightly and she hates that she sounds like a five year-old arguing with her sibling.

 

“God, MJ. Are you hearing yourself right now?”

 

She’s pacing around her room now, “Yeah, I am. Are  _ you  _ hearing yourself, though? You sound even more idiotic than usual. You keep dodging my questions and insisting that I should apologise to her.”

 

“Whatever. She’s your sister. I did what I could,” he says and he sounds like he’s about to hang up so she speaks before he does.

 

She steps out onto her fire escape, “What’s going on with you, Peter? This doesn’t sound like you at all.”

 

“I-I don’t- I’m just asking you to apologise!” he stammers, and all it does is just confirm that something’s wrong with him.

 

“No,” she says, wrapping her dressing gown around herself. “You know damn well that I shouldn’t be the one apologising, so why are you pushing so hard for this?”

 

When he doesn’t speak, she guesses, “Did she put you up to this?”

 

“MJ, no! I called you on my own.”

 

“Then why did you call me, Peter?” she presses.

 

“I-I don’t know,” he admits in defeat.

 

“Call me when you do.”

 

Gwen tries to talk to her over breakfast the next morning.

 

And on the way to school. 

 

Finally, she decides to put an end to it right as she sees Midtown Tech coming into view. 

 

She gives Gwen a half-assed apology for ‘overreacting’ and stalks into school and walks right past Ned and Peter, heading straight for her locker.

 

From the corner of her eye, she sees Peter kiss Gwen as she approaches him and she tries not to vomit into her locker. She slams her locker shut a little louder than usual to show Peter that she’s Extra Mad at him -yes, the capitalisation is absolutely necessary- but he’s already looking at her with those fucking puppy eyes when she glances at him so she rolls her eyes and walks to her first class.

 

She walks to her classes with Rihanna blasting in her ears and pretends not to notice when Ned gives her weird looks for head-bopping in class when she should be correcting Mr Cobwell. She pointedly ignores looking in Peter’s direction and giving him a chance to talk to her.

 

By the end of the day, she’s in a much better mood because she had realised during lunch that she doesn’t deserve both Peter and Gwen’s bullshit and they can be gross with each other. Her whole ass crush on Peter is something that she’ll have to get over and she’s convinced that she’s 20% over Peter Parker. 

 

Decathlon practice goes by in a flash -pun not intended- and both Peter and Gwen have given up trying to meet her gaze and sending her looks of confusion. 

 

And maybe she’s a little sad, but she just has to keep pushing her feelings for Peter down, until they’re non-existent. She’s going to stop feeling bad about herself and stop letting her heart sink whenever she sees Peter and Gwen together. 

 

She stays back after practice to finish updating her stats on each member’s performance and she’s still bopping to Rihanna so she doesn’t notice when someone approaches her and shifts around nervously. 

 

Over the catchy beat, she hears someone clear their throat and she finally removes a earbud and looks up at the person standing on the opposite end of her table. 

 

“Hi.”

 

She nods.

 

“I’m Harry. I’m new here?”


	5. styles? holland? potter? the prince!?!?!?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel like my chapters are getting shorter and shorter i'm so sorry
> 
> (also nick robinson is harry)

The boy has the slightest hint of a smirk on his face as he speaks, “I need to join an extracurricular and well, you should be able to figure out the rest.”

 

She narrows her eyes and leans forward intimidatingly, “Are you smart enough for it?”

 

He stands his ground, stuffs his hands into his pockets and cocks his head to the side as if he thought she was the most interesting thing on Earth, “I’d like to think so.”

 

She leans back against her seat, “Do you have any grades I can look at?”

 

“Oh yeah,” he says setting his bag onto the table and digging through it to look for his report card from his previous school. 

 

She takes the time to properly examine him. 

 

He’s wearing a black denim jacket over a white tee and a pair of jeans and he has straight, dark brown hair. He has that type of face that makes him look like he’s smirking all the time, even when he’s not. He’s confident and he’s not intimidated by her and he seems like the type of guy to lean against a wall and ask a girl out and- she forgot his name.

 

He pulls his report card out from his bag and hands it to her, “Like what you see?”

 

She rolls her eyes and makes sure to read his name.

 

Harry Osborn. 

 

Huh, that sounds awfully familiar. 

 

His grades are good and she has nothing left to lose so she nods, “Welcome aboard, Harry. Our next practice is on Friday after school so I’ll see you there and introduce you the your team.”

 

“Cool,” he nods, but he doesn’t leave like she expects him to. 

 

She sighs after a whole minute of Harry watching her pack her things and looks up at him, “Aren’t you going to leave?”

 

“Nope,” he says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Like it’s expected of him to stay there with her.

 

“Did I forget to give you your report card?”

 

“Nope.”

 

She gives him one of her exasperated glares and he shrugs, “I thought maybe I could get to know you better so that I’ll be more comfortable on Friday and everything would be a little less...awkward.”

 

Huh. That does make sense. 

 

“Fine. Give me a second,” she says, stuffing her books into her bag. 

 

He decides to walk her home. 

 

“So, what do you wanna know?”

 

“Uh, tell me about my teammates?”

 

 

“Alright! I’m giving you guys five seconds to get to your seats!” she calls out, and they all get to their seats in less than 3 seconds. 

 

Harry snorts next to her and she rolls her eyes. 

 

“I have the newest addition to our team standing beside me. Introduce yourself, Harry!”

 

“Uh, my name is Harry,” he says, and runs a hand through his hair. It makes both Cindy and Charles swoon. She stares at him and he furrows his eyebrows, “I like long walks on the beach?”

 

“Ok, Harry!” she says, shutting him up. “Harry will be participating in our drills today. Flash, don’t worry, he won’t be taking your place on the team. He’ll be our first alternate unless you, or Parker screw this up for me somehow.”

 

Flash rolls his eyes and Peter looks up at her in surprise, probably surprised that she’s even acknowledging his existence.

 

“Right, let’s start,” she says, grabbing her flashcards as everyone else opens their respective notebooks and binders. 

 

Harry stands by her side, never once moving from his place and she nudges him, “What are you doing? Go find a seat.”

 

He nods, grabs a chair and positions it right next to her. Then, he looks up at her and gives her a smile that’s daring her to say something, like he wants her to roll her eyes and say something sarcastic, so she just purses her lips and starts quizzing the team. 

 

Harry’s great. He’s almost as smart as Peter. 

 

But only almost.

 

Eventually, they become friends. She would never tell Harry that though. If anyone asks, they’re merely acquaintances. 

 

Harry’s dad also happens to be the head of an industrial company called Oscorp, which makes Harry super rich and super popular among the kids of Midtown. He sits at the table of popular kids -with Flash, yes- but he never does become as idiotic as they are like she expects him to. 

 

And one day, he sits at her table. 

 

Peter, Ned, and Gwen stare at her from their end of the table. 

 

Yeah, she’s moved back to her side. 

 

There’s no way she’ll be able to move on if she has to see Peter and Gwen make kissy faces at each other at any given chance. She told them it was because she couldn’t focus on her reading with them around, but she knew Ned didn’t believe her. She kind of pities Ned, third-wheeling with them and all. 

 

He pretends like it’s totally normal for him to be there, eating his lunch across her. She slowly lowers her book and narrows her eyes at him, “What are you doing?”

 

He pauses, looks down at his food and then back at her, “Eating?”

 

She sticks her thumb in the page she’d previously been reading and closes her book, “You know what I mean.”

 

“What  _ do  _ you mean?” he asks. 

 

She looks to Peter and Ned for help, but they both stare at her confusedly like the helpful idiots they are. 

 

“French fry?” he offers.

 

“No thanks.”

 

She stares at him as he eats. Maybe, this was a one time thing. It definitely has to be. 

 

So, she goes back to reading her book and they spend the rest of the lunch period in silence. 

 

But then, he keeps coming back. 

 

And she doesn’t know what to do, so she decides to sit with Peter and Ned (and Gwen).

 

Harry sits down next to her and starts talking about the test he took before lunch and what was the answer to question number five and she exchanges a look with Peter and he just shrugs.

 

Peter and Harry and Ned become the best of friends. 

 

She warms up to him, and learns to accept him into their circle of friends.

 

And then one day, she bumps into Harry at a protest. 

 

“What are you doing here?” she asks.

 

“I think global warming is real.”

 

She snorts, “You sure you didn’t come here to piss off your dad?”

 

He presses his hand to his chest in mock offense, “I’m offended that you’d even think that.”

 

She rolls her eyes.

 

When the protest is over, they both walk over to a hot dog stand to get some food, “Protests are fun. I’m coming to every protest with you now.”

 

She groans, “I’m glad that you care about our world but I hate that you’ve chosen to tag along with me.”

 

“How else will I show the world that I care?” he says, biting into his hotdog.

 

“Use your privilege. You’re a rich, white boy with thousands of followers on Instagram. Say something smart every now and then. It’ll be nice to see that amongst the million photos of yourself.”

 

“My dad would kill me,” he chuckles. “Tells me not to get too political or it’ll ruin business for him.”

 

“It’s your move, Osborn.”

 

When she gets home, she sees that she’s been tagged in an Instagram post that people keep liking and commenting on and that she has a hundred new followers. 

 

So, he did post after all. 

 

She rolls her eyes, but can’t fight the smile on her face at his witty caption. She likes the post, and as if on cue, she gets a text from her groupchat between her, Peter and Ned.

 

**_nerd leeds:_ ** _ mj has a boyfriendddddddddddd _

 

**_peter parkour:_ ** _ M J .  _

 

**_peter parkour:_ ** _ and you didn’t tell me????????? _

 

**_nerd leeds:_ ** _ she’s probably too busy falling in lovvvveeeee with harry and educating him on the patriarchy at the same time _

 

**_peter parkour:_ ** _ gross mj  _

 

**_the king of pop:_ ** _ i hate you both.  _


	6. books are the way to a girl's heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i strongly recommend that you think of nick robinson during this chapter

Her 3am phone calls are now reserved for Harry and Harry only. He used to call her with the excuse of needing her help on homework and Michelle, being the kind soul she was, would help him while she grumbled about all the sleep she was losing and how it was going to affect her perfectly organised schedule. 

 

But Harry’s a fast learner, and he’d get the hang of whatever she was trying to teach him in a matter of seconds. So, she’d tell herself to press the button to end the call but then he’d talk about a book she was reading and ask her to explain it to him, and she’d get so caught up in talking about the book, she’d forget about getting some sleep.

 

She wakes up regularly at 3am now, without an alarm or anything. If he doesn’t call in 15 minutes, she will. 

 

It’s 2am on Monday and it’s a little early for her to be awake so she walks out onto the roof of her apartment building with a book and reads as she waits for the hour to pass. It does, and he’s five minutes late when he calls. 

 

“Hey,” he breathes into the phone.

 

He sounds exhausted. 

 

“Hey,” she says, putting down her book and pressing her phone to her ear. “Were you asleep?”

 

“No, I- my dad, he’s been…”

 

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” she says quietly, looking down at her fingernails.

 

“No, I do,” he says, his voice firm, like he’s sure of it. “I just- god, he’s such a dick.”

 

He chuckles a little after saying that and she finds a small smile on her face. 

 

“I just wish I didn’t have the need to impress him all the time. It’s the worst. He’s the worst. I shouldn’t even be saying this, I’m sorry. I mean, at least I  _ have  _ a dad.”

 

She rolls her eyes, “I’m not going to be one of those people who tell you to be grateful for your shitty dad just because you have one and I don’t.”

 

They fall into a silence, and this time she doesn’t have the urge to end the call immediately like she usually would.

 

“I think some of my followers might have a crush on you.”

 

“What?”

 

“I saw a post on Instagram and it was all about how cute Harry Osborn’s best friend is.”

 

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you. I am cute,” she teases.

 

“And...you ruined it.”

 

They laugh some more and end up stalking that account until she decides she has to get some sleep. She ends the call and she’s about to leave the rooftop when she feels someone watching her. 

 

So, she does the logical thing and opens her front camera and pretends to fix her hair. Holding her phone at arm’s length, she sees a flash of red and blue behind her. She lowers her phone and she swears she hears some weird sound getting further and further away from her. She walks over to the other side of the rooftop, with her flashlight on. All she comes across is some white, sticky substance that she decides not to touch with her bare hands. 

  
  
  


 

Ned, Gwen and Peter corner her the next day.

 

“So, you and Harry?”

 

She opens her book and doesn’t look up at them once, “That’s not happening.”

 

Ned ignores her, “Oh my God. You’re going to ask him out first.”

 

“I’m not doing that, Ned,” she says, still reading her book. 

 

She sees Gwen signal to Ned from the corner of her eye, “She doesn’t know it yet.”

 

“Know what?” she snaps her head up, and the first thing she sees is Peter staring at her. 

 

He looks confused. Actually, he has that exact look on his face that he did in sophomore year when he started acting all weird and distraught after getting the Stark Internship and being annoyingly restless.

 

She peels her gaze away from him and decides to focus on Gwen instead.

 

“I just think,” she says in her sweet voice. “That maybe, you haven’t realised that you’re crushing on Harry. Hard.”

 

“I’m not- I don’t like Harry! He’s Harry!” 

 

And she knows that’s a shitty excuse and it’s so damn unbelievable but it’s true! She doesn’t like Harry. That would be weird.

 

“What are we talking about?” Harry says. 

 

On instinct, she smiles. Then, she sees Ned and Gwen staring at her and she forces her lips back into their usual frown.

 

“So, no one’s going to give me an answer. Great.”

 

He looks around the table and she feels his gaze on her for more than a second and then he snaps out of whatever trance he was in, “Right! Michelle!”

 

He digs into his bag and pulls out a book. He sets it on the table and slides it to her. When her eyes land on the book, they widen instantly. She looks up at him and then back at the book in front of her. Because it’s not just any book; it’s a book that she’s been wanting to get for so long but it’s so unbelievably hard to get and he’s just giving it to her like it’s no big deal. She doesn’t even remember telling him about it. God, that must’ve been ages ago. She doesn’t think she was even talking to him when she mentioned it. He probably just overheard it and remembered it and-

 

He just smiles at her and goes back to stuffing his face with french fries and that’s when she does something that she knows she will instantly regret. 

 

“Harry?” 

 

He looks up at her. He’s wearing a black sweater over a white shirt with the collars of the shirt sticking out and his hair is styled effortlessly and well, her feelings are all over the place. 

 

“Thank you.”

 

It’s sincere and it’s meant for him to know that she really means it and he smirks at her and goes back to eating his food. 

 

But that’s not enough for her.

 

“I like you.”

 

To her surprise, he doesn’t look up at her and stare at her in shock. He doesn’t choke on his chocolate milk. He doesn’t let out a strange, incoherent noise. Nope, that’s all Peter. 

 

Harry, however looks up at her and smiles genuinely, “I know.”

 

“You’re taking me out.”

 

He chuckles and unlocks his phone to a screenshot of a reservation he made at some restaurant for Friday night, “I was going to ask you out later.”

 

She stares at his phone screen and then back at him, “What if I had said no?”

 

“Well then, Ned would’ve had a nice dinner on Friday night with me.”

 

She smiles at him, “You’re  _ so   _ lame.”


	7. espionage

“Hey!” Peter, Ned, and Gwen exclaim at the same time as she walks into her home. For a brief moment she wonders why and how all her friends are casually hanging out on her couch and it feels like she’s in an episode of Friends, until she realises they’re all here because-

 

Peter is dating Gwen. 

 

And Ned just likes third-wheeling. 

 

But whatever. That was water under the bridge. She didn’t like Peter anymore and it definitely didn’t bother her that he was dating her sister.

 

“How’d the date go?” Gwen asks, angling her body so that she was facing her.

 

Michelle removes her shoes by the door, “It was fine.”

 

There’s a beat. 

 

And she thinks that they have gone back to focusing on whatever it was that they were watching when she realises that they’re still staring at her. 

 

“What do you want?” she shrugs.

 

“Fine? How could it just be  _ fine _ ? I mean, what does fine even mean? It can’t just be fine! This is Harry Osborn! You asked him out!” Ned practically explodes.

 

“Asked?” Peter chuckles, but stops abruptly when Michelle sends a death glare his way.

 

“It was a normal date, no big deal,” she shrugs as she gets a bottle of water from the refrigerator.

 

The three of them exchange a look and Peter waves them off as if to say that he’ll handle it.

 

“Good normal or bad normal?”

 

And it makes Michelle stop in her tracks, because she’s instantly taken back to a few months ago.

 

—

 

“ _ I can’t believe you’re really dying your hair red! That’s crazy!” Ned says, as she looks at the different shades of red to choose from. _

 

_ She traces her finger over a sample that’s a really dark red, almost auburn but still noticeably red, “I think I’m going with this one.” _

 

_ “MJ, come on,” Peter says, getting her attention. “You don’t have to dye your hair red because of something Flash said.” _

 

_ “I’m not one to back down from a challenge, Parker.” _

 

_ “I know that, but-“  _

 

_ She gives him a look.  _

 

_ And from behind her, Ned gives him a look which clearly means that he wants to see MJ with red hair and he’s screwing with his dreams. _

 

_ “Fine,” Peter says, raising both of his hands in defense. “It’s  _ **_your_ ** _ hair.” _

 

_ Michelle followed the hairstylist deeper into the salon because if she was going to dye her hair red to prove a point, she was going to get it professionally done because she did not trust herself OR Peter and Ned with her hair. _

 

_ When she was done an hour later, she didn’t expect to see the two of them still in the waiting area, playing some dumb game on their phones.  _

 

_ She had to clear her throat to get both of them to look up from their phones and when they did, Ned scrunched his face up.  _

 

_ “You know, it actually looks kinda normal.” _

 

_ “Normal?! It can’t be normal! The whole point of this was to do something that wasn’t normal!”  _

 

_ Ned shrugged, leaning closer to touch a strand of her hair, “But it kinda is...normal.” _

 

_ She rolled her eyes and looked over at Peter, “You haven’t said anything in a while which is kinda unusual for you so...good normal or bad normal?” _

 

_ “I-uh…” _

 

_ Ned nudged Peter with his elbow and whispered, “Use words.” _

 

_ “Good normal,” Peter finally said, nodding frantically. _

 

_ As they were leaving the hairdresser’s, she heard Ned whisper, “Jeez! I know she looks good but you’re one step away from drooling at her.” _

 

_ And it kept a smile on her face for the rest of the day. _

 

_ — _

 

“Good normal,” she says slowly, unconsciously smiling at the thought of Harry.

 

Gwen nudges both Peter and Ned, “She’s thinking of him! She’s thinking of him!”

 

“I think I’ve found a new couple to third wheel around.”

 

“You know I can still hear you guys, right?”

 

“Who cares? You’re in love!”

 

“I’m not in love!”

 

And Peter smiles at them, but he can’t shake the feeling that something’s wrong. It may be his spidey senses but there’s a horrible, sinking feeling inside him and he’s never really felt it before so it’s all so weird to him.

 

The weird thing is that the horrible feeling he’s getting is about Harry and MJ. They’re his best friends, he should be happy for the two of them, but there’s just something gnawing at him that he can’t seem to shake. 

 

So, he does the logical thing and decides to follow them on one of their dates. Disguised as Spider-Man, of course. There’s something that keeps him from telling Ned so he doesn’t let anyone know that he’s doing this.

 

He’s extra careful because he knows MJ is incredibly observant and it wouldn’t take her long to realise that a superhero is following her on her date and that would make her suspicious and bring about all sorts of chaos. 

 

He makes it just in time to catch them leaving yet another fancy restaurant. He follows them all the way to MJ’s apartment building and he watches from the roof as they end their fourth date. He waits for Harry to leave so he can finally get down to the  _ real  _ investigation but Harry never shows. He rushes over to the edge of the rooftop and looks down below but neither Harry, nor Michelle are anywhere to be found. 

 

His first thought is that they’re in trouble. Some evil supervillain has kidnapped his best friends as a way to get to him and now he’s got to save them from whichever abandoned warehouse they’re stuck in. It does bring a bit of a relief to him that some supervillain must surely be involved, with his golden rule about not using the suit for personal reasons. It makes him feel a lot better now that he doesn’t have to lie to himself about his real reason for using the suit.

 

And then it hits him.

 

Oh. 

 

She could’ve just invited him back to her apartment.

 

It makes sense too, because Gwen was up at Long Island with her dad where she was visiting her cousin. 

 

And there’s the gnawing feeling again. 

 

He’s following his train of thought and heading to a realisation when it’s cut short by his heightened senses. He hears voices coming from the exit, and they’re familiar voices and he puts two and two together. 

 

It makes sense that MJ would take Harry up to the roof since she’s probably spent many nights up there talking to him. The voices are getting closer and he looks around for a place to hide. In a panic, he shoots a web at the neighbouring building and crouches down on the roof as he waits for them. It isn’t really necessary to his...investigation that he listens in on their conversation but MJ barely shares anything about their relationship. So he wants details, sue him.

 

“So, this is where you spend your nights waiting for me to call.”

 

He hears MJ laugh and the horrible feeling inside him demands his attention. She mumbles something and he’s too distracted to pick up on it.

 

“Karen, what did MJ say?”

 

And Karen plays back the recording of MJ calling Harry a loser and even makes a comment about how it sounds an awful lot like what she used to say to him. 

 

He listens to them talk about literally everything, ranging from their daddy issues to a debate about the true color of the tablecloth at the fancy restaurant they went to for dinner. He finds himself rolling his eyes as he listens in on their conversation. All throughout his non-investigation there’s a question that taunts him, that keeps coming up even after he answers it:

 

Why does this-- why do  _ they  _ bother him so much?

 

And the answer should be simple: Because his spidey senses are tingling and that means that there’s a threat somewhere and he cares about MJ and that means he obviously wants her safe. 

 

That’s what he tells Karen, when she asks him why he’s spying on his friends while they’re on a date. 

 

“The answer’s in there somewhere, Peter,” is what she says, and what makes him roll his eyes because she’s just his AI (and also one of his best friends) but she doesn’t understand the complexity of this situation!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi im back i hope it didn't disappoint
> 
> softboyholland on tumblr
> 
> floofyparker on twitter


	8. no idea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hi pls comment so we can talk about this chapter together

 

MJ closes her book and places it on her chest. She stares up at Ned’s blank ceiling, “I think I’d rather just go with you.”

 

“Are you sure? I don’t mind breaking our pact just this once for you,” Ned says, looking around his messy desk for a specific Lego piece.

 

“No, I want to go with you,” she confirms. “Plus, it’d be too much work.”

 

Ned spins around in his chair to look at her, “ _ Too much work _ ?”

 

“I mean, I don’t even know about the protocol for these sort of things. Do we still have to ask each other or is it like an unspoken thing that we’re going together? Is it like a date or-”

 

“Michelle,” Ned deadpans, rolling his eyes. “You’ve been dating the guy for like, 3 months now. He’s your  _ boyfriend _ .”

 

“Boyfriend?” Michelle shudders. “Harry Osborn is my boyfriend? That sounds weird to say.”

 

“My dear MJ,” Ned starts, already turning around to focus on whatever it is that he’s building. “The truth is always weird.”

 

“I’d still rather go with you,” she concludes, opening her book again and holding it up above her.

 

“Great! You’re going to be my wingman- sorry, wingwoman, for the night.” 

 

‘I’d be happy to,” she smiles, shaking her head.

 

\---

 

“Hey,” Michelle says one day as they’re watching a movie. 

 

Harry pauses the movie and looks at her, giving her his full attention. 

 

She places a hand on his knee gently, “I’ve told you about the pact I made with Ned, right? The one about the dances…”

 

“Yeah,” he nods attentively and she would kiss him right then and there if she wasn’t trying to tell him something.

 

“You’re okay with me going with Ned instead of you, right? It’s just a thing we do and-”

 

Harry laughs, “Relax, MJ. I’m fine. It’s easier anyway, there’s no pressure.”

 

She looks at him with the googliest googly eyes known to humankind, “That’s what  _ I  _ said!”

 

“Besides,” she says, sliding her hand a little higher as she leans in. “There’s always prom, right?”

 

Harry leans back, “Right,”

 

Just centimetres away from him, she frowns. Harry nods his head subtly in the direction behind her. She climbs off of his leg and turns around to see none other than Peter standing awkwardly in the doorway and Gwen standing by the stairs, a little further away from him. 

 

“Hi,” she says awkwardly, taking her glasses off because she really doesn’t mind not being able to see the expressions on their faces. “I didn’t realise you guys were home.”

 

She makes out the shadow of a frown on Peter’s face as Gwen walks up to them, “We were upstairs.”

 

“Cool, cool,” she says looking down at her lap and fiddling with her fingernails.

 

They all stare at each other in silence for what feels like the longest minute and a half of her life. She decides to put an end to it, once and for all. She stands up, “Well, I’m just gonna…walk Harry out.”

 

Peter, however has other plans because just as she’s leaving with Harry, he says, “MJ, wait-”

 

Suddenly, Peter freezes, “Uh, I wanted to ask you if you...knew where Ned was? I’ve been trying to reach him all day, but he didn’t tell me if he had anything on today and I’m just worried, obviously because he’s my best friend and he-”

 

“Relax, Peter,” she rolls her eyes. “He’s out visiting his cousins or something.”

 

“Right,” Peter nods, stuffing his hands into his pockets and nodding his head slowly. “I didn’t know that.”

 

They start to head for the door again, when he speaks, “Why wouldn’t he tell me?”

 

“I’m sure he told you and you forgot about it,” Gwen says, placing a hand on his arm gently.

 

Then, for some weird reason, Peter starts to spiral. 

 

“I don’t know, I mean, I haven’t been hanging out with him as much lately and I feel bad. Do you think he’s mad?”

 

Gwen exchanges a look with her and she steps forward, “Peter, I don’t think-”

 

“Do you think he’s mad, MJ?!” Peter asks her in an overly dramatic manner. 

 

“Uh,” she stalls. “I think you’re fine.”

 

“But how will I know for sure?” Peter continues, pacing around the room. His voice seems to get a little louder everytime she tries to leave the room with Harry. 

 

As Peter panics, Harry whispers in her ear, “I really do have to go now, but I think you should stay and deal with him. He’s even more panicky than usual.”

 

She nods and attempts to kiss him but Harry turns his head at the same time Peter becomes even more dramatic and she ends up just kissing him on the cheek.    
  


Harry hugs Peter and Gwen goodbye and leaves the apartment with the most relieved look on his face. She doesn’t blame him-- Peter _is_ going a little crazy over here. She walks over to the couch and forces Peter to sit down with her so that he snaps out of whatever frenzy he’s in and as she’s giving him the pep talk of his whole damn life, he gets an alert on his phone and he fidgets around in his seat for a few seconds before she pauses, “What now?”

 

“I’m sorry, MJ. Can’t talk, gotta go.”

 

And with that, he grabs his backpack and sprints out of the apartment, leaving both MJ and Gwen confused. 

 

“Is he like this around you too?” she asks Gwen, her right eyebrow arching ever so slightly.

 

Gwen crosses her arms and chuckles in a really unfunny way, “Oh, MJ. You have  _ no idea _ .”

 

\--

 

“You look pretty!” Ned says, a huge smile creeping onto his face. “We have to take as many photos as possible.”

 

She rolls her eyes and pulls out a bag of gummy worms from her purse, “Boutonnieres are lame, so I decided to get you this.”

 

“Aw, come on, MJ! Remember when we went to homecoming together, sophomore year and rocked the corsage and boutonniere?” Ned says, as he takes the bag of candy from her. 

 

“I knew you’d bring that up,” MJ sighs.

 

“I knew you’d try not to wear it,” Ned counters. “That’s why I got myself a boutonniere  _ and  _ got you a corsage.”

 

She rolls her eyes and sticks out her hand as he puts it on for her, “So, what will my wingwoman-ing duties be for tonight?”

 

“The plan is to make Betty Brant realise that she has no idea what she’s missing out on!”

 

She tries her hardest not to look unimpressed -well, maybe she doesn’t try at all-, ‘Jealousy. Really?”

 

“It works, alright. You have no idea,” Ned says, mumbling the last part to himself.

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

“Nothing,” Ned brushes her off. “Are you ready to show Betty Brant what she’s missing?”

 

She rolls her eyes but follows him outside anyway.

 

\---

 

She adjusts her glasses before she gets ready to slow dance with Ned for the second time that night. The only reason she’s out here wearing her glasses is because she lost her contact lenses. She’s not complaining though, because that meant she had a legitimate reason to not let Gwen put eye makeup on her. As she dances with Ned and they get unreasonably close to Betty and her friends, she can’t help but find herself watching the entrance every now and then, to see if Harry would show up.

 

Peter and Gwen have already made it and they seem to be engrossed in some sort of conversation. Why isn’t he here yet?

 

She spends the rest of the night laughing at Ned’s jokes as if he’s the funniest man in the world and dancing circles around Betty and her friends. It’s fun, but it gets a little annoying when Betty starts paying attention to Ned and he keeps giving her a smug ‘I told you so’ look. Finally, Betty strikes up a conversation with him and she gets a moment to breathe. Just as she’s making her way towards Peter and Gwen, Harry enters the gym looking as disheveled as ever. He’s not even in a suit, he’s in his usual denim jacket. Still, she approaches him, “Where were you?”

 

“I’m sorry. I had stuff to work on...with my dad,” he says, still out of breath from...running all the way here?

 

“Why are you so out of breath? Did you run here or something?” she says, tilting her head to the side to properly examine him.

 

“Something,” he nods. “I have to talk to you. I mean, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about...well, stuff.”

 

She leads him out of the gym and into an empty classroom. They take their seats and she gestures for him to go on. 

 

“I think we should break up.”


	9. honesty hour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hi just wanna point out mj's outfit for the winter formal is the off white dress zendaya wore to the kcas this year and nick robinson who i imagine is harry is actually taller than zendaya in real life so

“W-what?” Michelle says in disbelief. There’s confusion written all over her face. “Is this because I went to the dance with Ned instead of you?” she says, and looks at him like he’s crazy.

 

“No! It’s not that,” Harry sighs. 

 

“Well then,  _ what is it _ ?” Michelle says, leaning back on her chair and crossing her arms intimidatingly. 

 

“Look, Michelle, I just- I love you-”

 

“Woah, woah, woah. You  _ love  _ me and yet, you’re breaking up with me?” 

 

“You didn’t let me finish,” Harry sighs. “I love you, obviously, but only as a friend. I thought...this was what I wanted but it isn’t. I don’t know what I want.”

 

“So, let me get this straight. You just want to be friends, and you’re figuring this out after…3 months together?” she asks, quirking an eyebrow.

 

Harry sighs and sits down at the desk next to her. He takes a deep breath and reaches over to her desk to take her hand in his, “Michelle, look at me.”

 

And she does. 

 

She’s hurt and confused and angry and betrayed but she looks at him as if she doesn’t feel a thing at all. He sighs and looks down at his shoes when he sees the blank expression on her face because he knows she’s trying to push her emotions away. Finally, he looks up at her again. 

 

“When I first met you, I thought you were the most fascinating person in the world. I wanted to know everything about you. You were the most interesting person in this school. I know this is the worst reason to break up with someone but everytime we kissed or did something that couples do, I just couldn’t shake the feeling that it didn’t feel  _ right _ . I still love you and mean everything I said to you, but I don’t think this is what we’re meant to be. I’m sorry, Michelle.”

 

The classroom is quiet for a while. He doesn’t let go of her hand and she doesn’t move her hand away either. It’s quiet as she stares straight ahead at the empty blackboard and he stares down at the floor as he rests his forehead against her hand. 

 

She speaks first, “I think...I almost loved you.”

 

“I- I could’ve grown to, but that isn’t fair to you and it would’ve just ended badly.”

 

Even though it hurts to look at him, she does anyway. He’s still looking down at the floor. Quietly, she says, “I’m not mad at you.”

 

His head shoots up and she sees the hope in his eyes. “I’m gonna need some time to recover from this, though. That doesn’t mean I want this to be the last real conversation we have.”

 

“I get it,” Harry nods. “I’m sorry.”

 

She tries to smile, “It was for the best, right?”

 

“Right. I’ve got some stuff I need to figure out on my own too.” 

 

They both stand up and stare at each other. 

 

Does she shake his hand? No, that’s too formal. She can’t kiss him anymore. So, does she hug him or would that be too weird? She decides to hug him one last time, “It’s for the best.” 

She can tell by the way he freezes up when she hugs him that he’s caught off guard. Slowly, he places a hand on her hair and hugs her back. When she decides she’s ready to let go of him, she pulls away from the hug and smiles up at him, “It’s gonna be hard finding a boyfriend who’s taller than me.”

 

He playfully scoffs, “Hard? It’s gonna be impossible. Look at you.”

 

She smiles. 

 

There’s a beat. “So, I assume you’re not going back to the dance?” she says, looking at him. 

 

“I can’t,” Harry shakes his head, looking down at his shoes. “I have to figure some stuff out.”

 

“Cool,” she nods, trying to mentally tell herself that nothing’s wrong and that she’s gonna be fine. “Well, I’ve got to get back out there. I’m Ned’s wingwoman for the night.” 

 

She’s almost out of the classroom when she stops in the doorway. She turns around, “Could we, maybe not...tell everyone about this for a little while?”

 

“Sure,” Harry nods.

 

“I’ll see you around,” Michelle says, bracing herself to go back to the dance again. 

 

“You will.”

 

\--

  
  


Thankfully, none of her friends caught on to her break-up with Harry. Peter and Gwen, were too wrapped up in each other to notice the world around them and Ned was just...not around anymore. 

 

Now that she thinks about it, it is kinda weird that Ned’s growing distant. The more she thinks about it, she realises that the whole group has been distant in their own way. 

 

She holds that thought to cringe. God, she’s part of an obnoxious friend group. 

 

Peter hasn’t been over at her apartment a lot, but Gwen hasn’t been at home lately. Ned hasn’t been texting her as often as he usually does. And Harry, well, she hasn’t texted him since the break-up. She was serious about needing some time apart from him. As much as she wanted to just go back to being friends and pretend like nothing happened, she knew that would hurt her in the long run. She was learning to accept the break-up, anyway. It’s been two weeks since then. It gave her a lot of time to reflect, do her own thing and figure herself out. Besides, it felt good to not be vulnerable anymore. She wasn’t pining over Peter and she was getting over Harry. It felt good. 

 

She looks at the time on her phone and decides it’s about time she pays Ned a visit. Something’s going on. 

 

She grabs her coat, puts on her sneakers and makes her way over to Ned’s. She comes up with at least 5 different explanations as to why he’s been so distant lately. What she doesn’t expect to see, is Ned yelling at both Peter and Gwen as they sit on his couch. 

 

“Why wasn’t I invited?” 

 

They all have different reactions when they see her. 

 

Ned panics and makes a strange noise as he stares at her with wide eyes and his mouth half-open. Peter’s eyes go wide and all he’s able to say is her name. Gwen looks between Peter and her and rolls her eyes. 

 

“What’s going on?” she says, walking into the apartment. 

 

At that, Ned stares both Peter and Gwen down. “Go ahead. Tell her.”

 

“Don’t look at me like that,” Gwen says, leaning back and quirking her brow as if she had nothing to do with whatever Ned was suggesting. “I wanted to.”

 

“Tell me what?” 

 

“I broke up with Peter,” Gwen says, confidently. Almost as if...it doesn’t bother her at all. 

 

“Wait,” she says, holding her hand out in front of them. “Just now?! Is that why Ned was yelling at you?”

 

“No, actually,” Ned says, glaring at Peter. “They’ve been broken up for like...almost a month.”

 

“And you didn’t tell  _ me _ ?” Michelle asks, wanting to kill the both of them. “Both of you?!” she looks at Gwen, who has the decency to look sorry.

 

Just then, she remembers that she’s been keeping her break-up with Harry from them for two whole weeks and she shrugs, “It’s fine.”

 

“And, I wasn’t yelling at them. I was yelling at Peter.”

 

Peter, who’s been abnormally quiet is avoiding any form of eye contact with her. She squints at him intimidatingly, expecting him to meet her eyes but he keeps staring at the stupid plant by the door. Then, she looks at Gwen and Ned who are also glaring at him. 

 

“I have a feeling that there’s something much bigger going on that I’m not aware of.”

 

“There’s nothing, Michelle,” he says, looking up at her for a second and then looking away again. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it. I- I needed some time to uh, process....it.”

 

His phone pings and he checks it. With a relieved sigh, he locks his phone and stuffs it into his backpack, “I gotta go.”

 

He looks at Ned and Ned does nothing but sigh. Gwen isn’t even paying attention, she’s just staring at the floor with a worried expression on her face. Peter leaves and she stuffs her hands in her pockets. She decides she needs to spend some time with her sister. 

 

“Hey, Gwen? Let’s go home.”

 

“Alright,” Gwen sighs. 

 

\--

 

She remembers when Gwen broke up with her boyfriend in the sixth grade and makes her a sandwich. Carefully, she knocks on her bedroom door and holds out the plate of grilled cheese to allow her to catch a whiff of the smell. She opens the door as expected, which makes Michelle smile.

 

“You owe me an explanation.”

 

Gwen chuckles and gestures for her to come in. She leaves the plate of grilled cheese on Gwen’s desk and plops down onto her bed. Gwen sits down at her desk and grabs a sandwich, “I guess I do.”

 

“There’s a lot to say,” Gwen says, looking up at her ceiling. “But I’ll give you the short version. It started out great, but then things got a little rocky. I always had the feeling that Peter was never being completely honest with me about things. You know Peter, he’s never honest with  _ himself.  _ We liked each other, but I don’t think that we trusted each other. And you know, weirdly enough, when I broke up with him, I didn’t feel bad about it. It felt right. I mean, it was weird to not be able to do couple-y things anymore because I didn’t have a person. If I ever did miss anything, it was probably being in a relationship and not the person I was in the relationship with.”

 

“Damn,” Michelle says. 

 

“Yeah,” Gwen laughs, wiping the crumbs off her fingertips with a tissue paper. 

 

“You sure you’re okay?” Michelle checks. 

 

“I am,” Gwen nods, confidently. “I’m also...really sorry, about everything. Everything that happened while I was with Peter. The incident at Decathlon and everything.”

 

“Hey, it’s okay. I’m over it.” 

 

Gwen smiles and the room is quiet for a little while. Michelle sighs. She’s got to do this, doesn’t she?

 

“I’m sorry too. I guess I was a little hard on you when you were dating Peter,” she cringes, as she thinks about what she’s about to say. “Maybe, part of the reason why I was the worst during that period of time...is because...I was kind of, really into Peter.”

 

“What?”

 

“Yeah…” MJ trails off, playing with a loose thread on her shirt. 

 

“I had no idea. I’m so sorry, MJ. If I had known, I would’ve never-”

 

“I know. It’s okay, though because I’m over it.”

 

“Right,” Gwen nods, a little smile making its way to her face. “Because of Harry.”

 

Harry. Right. 

 

She tilts her head, “Well...I wouldn’t give Harry _ all _ the credit. I mean, I was over him before I even met Harry.”

 

Gwen places a hand on her arm and gives her a warm smile, “I’m glad you’re happier now, MJ.”

 

“So happy,” MJ smiles a little tightly, and purses her lips together. She’s starting to feel a little bad for lying to Gwen about Harry. Well, she wasn’t exactly lying. She was just, withholding information. 

 

She pushes her thoughts away and places her hand on top of Gwen’s, “I’m glad we’re okay again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmk what you think 
> 
> softboyholland on tumblr
> 
> floofyparker on twitter
> 
> curlytommo on curious cat


	10. closure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is dedicated to the very sweet, very amazing, @/sayakingdominon on twitter for being so patient with me. ily <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hate this chapter it's very messy because i wrote the first half of it a long time ago and the second half like half an hour ago so

Being observant is something Michelle prides herself on. So, obviously, when her sister breaks up with Peter because she always felt like he was keeping something from her, it’s her responsibility to find out what the bastard is up to. 

 

Peter Parker wasn’t always like this. 

 

He was never restless, extremely muscular, distracted and always late. She’d been there when his favourite thing in the world was school, when he was extremely skinny, and always the first person to show up to Decathlon meetings. It could all be traced back to something that happened to him in freshman year. Back then, Michelle chalked it up to his uncle’s death but it was evident now that there was something else. 

 

Then, he told her about the Stark Internship and she bought it for a while until she overheard him telling Ned about how he got fired from the Stark Internship during sophomore year. He seemed normal for a month or so, until he went back to ditching Ned and always running off somewhere.

 

It was incredibly annoying and she meant to get down to the bottom of it a long time ago, but she got distracted by his brown eyes, his curly hair, his smile-

 

Long story short, she got sidetracked. 

 

But she was back now and she was sure her feelings for him were nothing but ancient history, so she was going to resume her investigation. Obviously, Ned knew about whatever his best friend was up to, or going through so she wasn’t going to tell anyone about her investigation. She had new reason to figure out what he was up to and it was because her sister deserved closure. She was going to do anything to figure him out. 

 

That’s why she’s currently following Peter back to his apartment. She purposely cancelled Decathlon practice today just so she could follow him. She’s been watching him for a whole week now and taking note of his suspicious habits and she’s pretty sure she’s going to find out what he’s up to. 

 

Her first guess is that he doubles as one of those underground boxers and uses the cash he earns from that to buy tech, which is why she always sees weird tech lying around his room or poking out of his backpack.

 

Her second guess, is well, drugs. Not that he does drugs, but he deals them. A lot of math is involved in dealing drugs and he is suspiciously good at math.

 

Her third and final guess, or well, joke guess; is that he’s Spider-Man. She laughed so hard when she thought about it that she nearly cried. 

 

He keeps looking behind him as if he can sense her following him but she’s always a second earlier than him, hiding behind walls and ducking behind objects. It makes her feel somewhat like a spy and gets her a little excited. She’s so caught up in feeling like a spy that she doesn’t notice him turn around and see her following him.

 

“MJ?” he gulps.

 

She curses under her breath and averts her gaze from the pavement, “Peter?”

 

“What are you doing here?” he asks, looking around him cautiously. 

 

“Walking home? What does it look like I’m doing?” she says, faking annoyance and rolling her eyes.

 

Peter stops walking and stands right outside of an alley that looks dark and dangerous and could possibly hold the secret entrance to his underground boxing ring. He shoves his hands into his pockets and fidgets around impatiently, “You’re using this way?”

 

“Yes,” she says, firmly. “I’ve got a few stops to make.”

 

Peter flinches, looking around the eerily quiet neighborhood in disbelief, “ _ Where?!” _

 

She finally catches up to him and stops right in front of him, “That’s none of your business, Parker.”

 

And she must be a little too close to him because his cheeks flush red and he coughs and sputters and takes a step back awkwardly. Just as she’s thinking of a way to get him off her back so that she can go back to following him, she hears a sharp and loud scream coming from a distance. 

 

“ _ Help! _ ” 

 

The hairs on Peter’s forearm stand up straight and on instinct, he immediately grabs her hand and stands in front of her. It’s almost as if he’s...protecting her. She doesn’t think about how it’s instinct for him to shield her from any form of danger. Then, she comes to her senses and pulls her hand away from his grip.

 

“Let go of me, you weirdo!”

 

“Sorry,” he apologises absentmindedly because he’s still looking around them for the source of the scream.

 

“ _ Help! _ ”

 

“We should probably help,” MJ says, looking behind her.

 

She’s turning on her heel to run when he wraps his hand around her wrist. She looks at him in confusion. His expression is serious when he says, “It’s not safe here, Michelle. Go home.”

 

“I can’t go home! I’m going to help!”

 

“I’ll help! You go home!”

 

“I know what I’m doing, Peter! Let go of me!”

 

“ _ Help! _ ”

 

“I’m not letting you go anywhere near-”

 

“Excuse, you!  _ Letting me?!” _

 

“Damn it, Michelle!” he growls and pulls her into the alley. 

 

He starts unbuttoning his shirt and she nearly punches him, “Peter, what the fu-”

 

But he’s unbuttoning his plaid shirt to reveal a symbol. A symbol that anyone in New York would recognize. There’s a black spider on his chest that shuts her up, halfway through her sentence. She watches dumbly as he gets rid of his Peter Parker clothing to reveal his well, suit. 

 

Her first thought is that this has to be a prank. It just has to be. But the look on Peter’s face says otherwise. He grabs the mask from his bag and pulls it on. In a softer voice, he pleads with her, “Stay here, MJ. Please?”

 

With that, he shoots a web at a nearby building and swings away.

 

She doesn’t know what to do so she just stays there and sits on a random crate. She stares at the disgusting wall in front of her and tries to make sense of all of this. Slowly, it all makes sense. She realises that her third guess wasn’t really a joke guess. She pulls out her phone and looks up Spider-Man’s first appearance and realises it was around the same time when Peter started getting all bulky and weird. 

 

She remembers when he got stuck to her notebook during Decathlon practice and Flash made fun of him for two weeks after that incident. She remembers Peter ditching Liz at the homecoming dance in sophomore year and getting news hours later that Spider-Man had fought her dad. It all makes perfect sense. 

 

She’s extremely mad at herself for not figuring it out sooner when it was right there in front of her all long. As she’s thinking about it, Peter arrives back in the alley. 

 

“MJ, I-”

 

She stands up and cuts him off, “I’m sorry, Peter. I shouldn’t have been so nosy.”

 

“I’m sorry about what I did back there. You know, losing my temper and all. It’s just- someone was in danger and I was running out of time,” Peter sighs, removing his mask and sitting down next to her.

 

It’s weird seeing him in the Spider-Man outfit without his mask on but it also...fits. 

 

“I’m sorry I pushed you to tell me about it,” she says, quietly. 

 

“Everyone who knows found out by accident, you know. I’m sorry you found out, but it also feels good having you know. I mean, it’s one less person I care about that I have to lie to,” Peter shrugs, looking down at his feet.

 

“Is this why Gwen broke up with you?” she blurts out loud, and immediately regrets it once she sees the guilty look on his face. “Sorry, I should stop-”

 

“No, it’s okay,” Peter tries to smile. “When Ned found out, he asked me way more questions,” he chuckles, remembering all the ridiculous questions he had to deal with. 

 

“And yeah, it was part of the reason she broke up with me. I wasn’t being completely honest with her.”

 

_ Part of the reason?  _

 

She looks at him fiddling with his mask, “What was the other reason?”

 

He looks up at her for a moment, staring right into her eyes. He doesn’t say anything, he just... _ looks  _ at her. Then, as if it pains him to look at her, he winces and looks down at his mask again, “I’m not ready to talk about it.”

 

“As long as you didn’t do something stupid…” she trails off, her words slightly threatening. “I know you’re Spider-Man but I could still take you.”

 

Peter lets out a soft laugh and looks at her again, “I shouldn’t have been in a relationship with Gwen. I should’ve realised that a long time ago. The stupid thing I did was ignore it because I was blinded by having a girl like me for the first time.”

 

She snorts and a strand of hair covering her face moves, “Gwen was not the first girl, I can tell you that.”

 

Peter looks surprised for a moment, but then he shakes his head.

 

“That doesn’t matter. You and May are the only women I need,” Peter says so casually that it catches her off guard and she feels her heart drop to her stomach. She gives herself a mental pep talk; he’s trying to move on from Gwen and he means it platonically. There’s no reason for her stupid feelings for him to resurface. 

 

So, just to remind herself to control her feelings, she adds, “And whoever your soulmate is.”

 

“I don’t think I get that, MJ,” he smiles at her sadly. “Being Spider-Man puts everyone I love in danger, I can’t afford that.”

 

She feels a lump in her throat that she swallows down as she sees him put on the mask. He turns to her, “I gotta go do some more patrolling. I’ll tell you more about the suit and my powers later, if you want. Bye, MJ!”

 

And she watches as he swings away, sacrificing his normal life because he just wants to help people. Her heart breaks for him as she grabs her backpack and leaves the shady neighborhood.

 

\--

 

She tries her best to fall asleep that night but she ends up waking up every 20 minutes. After waking up again for the fourth time that night, she sits up against her headboard and checks her phone. It’s 3 am. Suddenly, she finds herself going through her contacts and typing the alphabet ‘P’ in.

 

It rings twice before he finally picks up. 

 

“Hello?” he asks, his voice slightly lower than usual and laced with sleep.

 

“Hi,” is all she says because she doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t know why she called him, of all people.

 

“MJ?” he asks, and she hears the sound of him moving around on the other end of the line. “Are you okay?”

 

“I couldn’t sleep. I’m sorry, I don’t know why I called.”

 

“Hey, it’s okay. I should be up anyway. I’ve got an essay to write,” Peter says.

 

“For Cobwell?”

 

“Yeah,” Peter sighs.

 

They’re accompanied by each other’s breathing on the phone -and Peter’s occasional groans and complaints as he writes his essay- until Michelle decides to break the silence.

 

“Can I ask you a question?” 

 

She hears the sound of his pen scribbling against his paper come to a halt, “Sure. I’m done with the essay anyway.”

 

“Have you ever met Thor?”

 

Peter laughs, remembering that MJ went through a brief Thor phase in her life. On the other end of the line, MJ cracks a smile because it’s the first time Peter’s actually laughed with her since he broke up with Gwen. 

 

“Yeah,” Peter says, and she hears the smile in his voice. “I see why you had a crush on him.”

 

And they spend the rest of the night gushing over Thor together. At around 5:30 in the morning, she feels herself drifting off to sleep. The last thing she hears is Peter’s soft, but quiet voice wishing her good night. The last thing she thinks is that she’s glad she has him back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi i changed my twitter @ i'm @/spieduhrman now so go talk to me on there about this

**Author's Note:**

> floofyparker on twitter  
> softboyholland on tumblr


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